Reducing semifluid food substances to dry powdered form



' J. c. IVIAcLACH'LAN.

REDUCING SEMIFLUID FOOD SUBSTANCES T0 DRY POWDERED FOR APPLICATION FILEDAme; i921.

1H Mmwfl May 3, W2...

J'UHN U. .MZAGLACHLAN, 01E ST. PAUL, MINNESO'I'h.

nnnucrue snrarrnurn re on snns'rancns to ar rovvnnnnn ro.

imosa.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Ma as, ieaa.

mistrial application filed. August 2, 1920, serial No. 400,571. Dividedand this application filed April 9,

rear.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, Jonas C. MEAoLAcH- LAN, a citizen of the UnitedStates, residing at St. lPaul in the county of Ramsey and fitate ofMinnesota, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in ReducingSemifluid Food Substances to Dry Powdered Form; and T do hereby declarethe following to be'a full, clear, and exact description of theinvention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which itappertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to a process of preparing a cereal food andparticularly to the preparation of such a food from a cooked materialora cereal. While the process as disclosed herein relates particularly tooatmeal it will be understood that the process can ice applied tovarious cereals such as barley, wheat and the various products madetherefrom. The oatmeal or oatmeal flakes forming the well-knowncommercial article requires as a rule about twenty minutes of cooking toprepare it for serving. This material as a rule is first partiallycooked before-being prepared for the market. Uat; meal in order to bethoroughly cooked requires several hours of cooking and this cookingprocess shouldbe carried out by boiling the material and not merely bysteaming the same. Y It is an object of this invention therefore toproduce a dry flour-like material from oatmeal or other cereal whichmaterial will have been thoroughly cooked and will retain the originalnatural flavor of the cereal and which will also be capable of beingvery quickly prepared for serving.

llt 1s a further object of this process to produce such a productbyspraying the thoroughly cooked cereal, thoroughly disintegrating thesame and drying the same very rapidly. It is by means of the almostinstantaneous dryingstep that the desirable flavors are retained in thematerial.

These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from thefollowing description made in connection with the accompanying drawingswhich are illustrative of one form of apparatus by which the process canbe carried out, and, in which like referserial No. 460,057.

ence characters refer to the same parts in the different views, inwhich-- F g. 1 is a central vertical section of the dry ng chamber andapparatus; and

Fig. 2 is a central vertical section on an enlarged scale of a portionof the centrifugal apparatus.

This application is a division of my copendlng application SJ N.400,571, filed August 2nd, 1920.

Tn carrying out the process, the oatmeal or other cereal is firstthoroughly cooked and this cooking preferably is done in a closed vesselso that the flavor of the material is retained as far as possible. Thecooked cereal which is in a semi-fluid condition is then fed. to thespraying apparatus. This is preferably of a centrifugal type. In theform of apparatus disclosed in Fig. 1 of the drawings, the semi-fluidcooked cereal will be retained in a tank or vat 1 and will be dischargedtherefrom through a suitable nozzle or other discharge device through afunnel 2 leading into a central discharge pipe 3. This pipe or tubedischarges onto a discharge head or plate 4 which is carried on theunder side of a dome-like or semispherical'head 5. This head 5 issecured to and carried on the lower end of a rotary spindle 6 disposedin suitable bearings carried in the frame 7 and which has a groovedpulley 8 secured thereto, adapted toreceive and be driven by a belt 9connected to the driving pulley of some suitable motor 10. While themotor and belt have been successfully used in driving the centrifugaldischarge head, it has been found in practice that the same can also besuitably driven at high speed by small steam turbine secured to therotating tube '6 and which will be driven by steam supplied by a pipeconnected thereto. The frame 7 is disposed in a recess formed centrallyin the tube 11 of a chamber 12 having the side Walls 13. A deflectingmember 141; depends from the bracket 7 and constitutes a cylindrical memher having its lower end flaring and disposed adjacent to the uppersurface of the member 5. This member is surrounded by a steam pipe 15having a suitably valved sup ply pipe 16 connected thereto and the pipe15 is formed with a large number of small holes opening through itslower surface. An annular conduit 17 of considerably larger diameterthan the member 14 surrounds the latter and is located adjacent the top11 of the chamber 12. This conduit is connected to a hot air sprayingconduit 18 leading from a suitable air heating device 19. The chamber 12has the runway or passage 20 extending therethrough a portion of thesides of which are formed as screened openings 21. A chamber at eachside of the passage 26 is formed with lateral converging troughs 27which may be provided at a lower portion with a suitable screw or otherconveyors. The passage 26 is also open beneath the trough members 27 anda conduit 28 is connected through the side walls of chamber 12 below thesaid troughs and communicates with a suction chamber 29 which will beprovided with a suction fan.

With the above described apparatus, the oatmeal or other cooked cerealwhich is fed onto. the discharge head 4 will be thrown therefromradially with great force due to the high speed at which the said headis driven. The material will strike the member 5 andbe deflected therebydownwardly so as to be thrown in an umbrella-like shower as shown inFig. l. superheated steam is supplied through the pipe 16 and this steamwill be directed downwardly through the apertures in pipe 15. It willthus be directed transversely of the film of material being discharged.This steam will act to disintegrate-the material into very fineparticles by its impact therewith and will also heat the same. As thematerial travels outwardly, it will be subjected to the blast of hot airwhich is driven downwardly from the apertures in the conduit 17 and willbe practically instantaneously dried thereby. The heating .of thematerialby the highly heated steam will assist the heated air in dryingthe same. The material will fall into the troughs at the bottom of thechamber and be collected therein as a coarse dry powder.

7 The material so treated forms a breakfast food of high quality. Thisfood can be quickly made into a porridge for serving by adding water andsimply bringing the mixture to a boil or by merely pouring boiling waterover the powdered material. The Very rapid drying, which drying asstated is substantially instantaneous results in the food retaining itsoriginal flavor and this flavor is likewise retained when the materialis made into a porridge for serving. It may be stated that the action ofthe steam as the disintegrating medium, replaces the usual practice thatthe material will stick to and accumulate on the beating blades, thusinterfering with the proper division and disintegration of material.This objectionable feature is eliminated and a superior disintegratingaction is secured by the use of the steam jets as above disclosed.

It will, ofcourse, be understood that various changes may be made in theprocedure and succession of the steps of the process and that otherforms of apparatusmay be used to perform the same without departing fromthe scope of applicants invention, which generally stated consists inthe matter shown and described and set forth in the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. The process of preparing a cereal breakfast food, which consists inthoroughly cooking the cereal, spraying and disintegrating the same andrapidly drying the cereal to form a coarse powdered material.

2. The process of producing a cereal food consisting of thoroughlycooking the cereal, spraying the same centrifugally to finely divide thesame and subjecting the same to a very rapid drying to form a coarse drypowdered material.

3. The process of preparing a food from a cereal which consists inthoroughly cook-.

ing' the cereal, discharging the same centrifugally in an umbrella-likeshower in a drying chamber and directing a blast of hot air transverselythrough the said shower to dry the material and form a coarse powderedproduct.

4. The process of preparing a breakfast food from a cereal whichconsists in thoroughly cooking the cereal, discharging the samecentrifugally in an umbrella-like shower, directing a blast of hot drysteam transversely through said shower to disintegrate the material andthen drying the same very rapidly to form a dry coarse powderedmaterial. I

5. The process of preparing a breakfast food from oatmeal which consistsin thoroughly cooking the oatmeal, discharging the same while in asemi-fluid condition centrifugally in an umbrella-like shower, directinga blast of hot dry steam through said shower to disintegrate the same,and directing a blast of heated air through said shower to form a drycoarse powdered material.

6. The process of preparing a breakfastfood from oatmeal which consistsin thoroughly cooking the same, spraying the same centrifugally,disintegrating the material by a blast of hot gaseous medium and thendrying the same substantially instantaneously to form a dry coarsepowdered material.

7. The process of treating a thoroughly cooked cereal comprisingdisintegrating and rapidly drying the same while in transit through theair.

8. The process of treating cooked cereal the same in a shower, and thenWhile in Which comprises spraying the same, and transit in the airdisintegrating and rapidly 10 then while the same is in transit in theair drying the same by impact of hot gaseous disintegrating the same bythe impact of a media.

5 hot gaseous'medium and rapidly drying the In testimony whereof I aflixmy signasame. ture.

9. The process of treating a thoroughly cooked cereal- Which consists inprojecting J OHN C. MAQLACHLAN.

